Many of you may have noticed I occasionally reference rendezvous in my posts. Some of you may be wondering, "What is rendezvous?" I am here to shed some light on the subject!

Rendezvousing is a bunch of people who re-enact different periods in history. We're talking mainly the fur trading era. There are rendezvous all year round. My family re-enacts the 1800's - 1840's. We are not a traveling band of homeless people, nor are we some sort of circus. Most rendezvous have a small admission fee, but once you're in there is much to see. The re-enactors (such as my family) set up various styles and sizes of canvas tents in which we sleep. Depending on how authentic you get the inside of the tent may be opened to the public if everything inside is time period. If it isn't, the tent flaps must remain closed.

My family has a modern inside. Therefore, we keep our tent closed off. We sleep on a full sized bunk bed my dad made with blankets and sleeping bags. We also keep coolers of food, clothes bins, suitcases, and a propane heater inside. (We camp in the fall when it's cooler or very cold out. The propane heater is safe to have inside as long as it isn't too close to the tent walls.)

There are a few different groups of rendezvousers. The family camps, the demonstrators, and the traders.

Family camps don't demonstrate or sell anything. They are simply there to enjoy the festivities and atmosphere of rendezvousing.

Demonstrators demonstrate a time period skill from the period they portray. My family did family camping until a couple years ago when my dad and younger brother took a class on coopering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_%28profession%29 During the week, school kids (public and home-schooled) come through on assigned schedules to watch demonstrators for what we call "school days." The demonstrator explains their trade and the history behind it.

Traders are usually set up in one area and sell/trade/bargain time period wares. That is where my family has been able to pick up some of our pots stools, and wool blankets. We've purchased or were given cast iron from my grandpa who buys them garage sales. We bought all our silverware at antique shops. We bought our tent from one of the traders as well. My dad is pretty handy with wood, so he built our table, chairs and benches.

Sadly, at some rendezvous traders buy China made products such a trinkets and try to sell those to ignorant school kids. -_-

Rendezvous vary in length as well. Some are only a Friday-Sunday. Others are a week or longer. (A week is usually the longest I've seen and been to.)

Clothing is time period as well. My mom is a sewer (I'm still learning) and she made my family's clothing. The patterns weren't costume. They were actual time period clothing style patterns. Quite a few men really get into character by growing long hair or having long beards.

There are fun contests too! Most often they are specifically for the rendezvousers, but public can watch. There are tomahawk throwing contests (not ax throwing as most flat-landers call it), knife throwing, archery, fire starting, and muzzle-loader contests. Prizes are usually awarded on Sunday, the last day of the rendezvous. (The day after the contest typically.)

Depending on the rendezvous, there are even old fashioned church gatherings. (We're friends with a guy who has a church service outside his tent on Sunday morning at one of the rendezvous we go to.)

I'll attach some pictures I've taken at rendezvous we've been to so you get an idea of what it looks like. ^^ I hope this explains everything well enough!

~Calen

Here are some more. (My pictures are sort of large...so I can only post so many at a time.) X3

Fascinating. I had never heard of rendezvous before. Sounds like you could use it as the setting for a book.

Sweet! That could make a cool setting for a book =)

eruheran

Ooooooh! I didn't know it was CALLED a rendezvous but I've done this! It's fun.

Rendezvous sound SO fun. Always wanted to go visit ya'll at one. ;D

Remember the time you had your tent set up in your yard and we hung out in it and ate fresh tortillas from your mom? Mmm. I still remember how good those tasted -- I don't think that my mom ever quite mastered tortillas like that.


(...ahhh, the remembrances of childhood...)

Thank you for posting this explanation and the lovely pictures, Almond!

Is that a tomahawk I see? Just kidding! Wow, that does look like fun! The name is just cool too. Thanks for sharing!

Actually looked at the pics now.

Hey, if that is your brother w/ the tomahawk.. is that the tomahawk he swapped Don for? Or has he upgraded tomahawks since then? XD

And cool with the spinning wheel... tell your mom it looks awesome. Do you spin on that wheel at all?

Wow, this is great! And how fun that you can do it as a family.

I love the clothing...I've always wanted to dress in various period garb, but never had a reason to do so.

That looks so cool! I would love to do something like that. Unfortunately, my dad's version of enjoying the great outdoors is golfing...

Are the pictures of your family?

That's cool! You must get to meet the coolest people at those.
I go to Ren Fests, and I've always wanted to camp out with people in the field nearby. So many people that go are awesome, I bet it's even better in such a condensed awesome for so long. It's cool that the clothes have to really be period, and I admire you guys for taking the time to look up real patterns. I, disliking all things involving small pointy objects (I do enjoy knives and swords however), have made all of one dress in my life. But it's because... I like talking with the dress and corset makers! Yes! That's it! And... throwing my money at them for things I maybe could've made. Yep. That's it.
Anyway, it sounds like a ton of fun. Where do you guys live? Are those things common around the country? What different time periods to people re-enact? Do they do Victorian? Civil War? Do they do primarily American stuff? British? Or do they span all over into Asia? I'd love to have an excuse to get a Sari! I'd need to convince my mom to go, though; my dad is totally into Rens and things-my mom, not so much.
Sorry to maybe go on a wabbit twail, but does anyone else here go to Rens? We're really leniant with the things you wear; many people don't wear true Elizabethan clothes, which is somewhat sad but also quite cool because you get mythological characters, life-size ents, faeries flittering around, stuff like that. And sci-fi stuff. We get a lot of storm troopers and Darth Vaders. It's really great. I usually go in elvish-like things, but next year I think I'll go as the ghost of Anne Boleyn, with her mole and extra finger. And yell at the Henry VIII they have walking around. Yes!

I apologize for leaving questions unanswered. >< I am here now and will answer them to the best of my knowledge.

Note: Sadly, I have to remove smileys from the quotes otherwise I would be over the smiley limit. ^^;;


I think rendezvousing is mainly featured around the Midwestern part of the United States, which may be why some may not be familiar with it.


I've also thought of using it as a book setting before, but I've mainly applied it to a couple fantasy stories and a historical fiction story.


Really? Cool! It is fun, isn't? There are so many things to see there!


Wow, now I'm really diggin'! I do vaguely recall that...I remember having the garage sale in it before we moved.


You're welcome!


That is indeed a tomahawk. :3 That's a friend of ours that we see once a year at that particular rendezvous. His name is Joey.


That's Joey. My brother still has the tomahawk he and Don traded for. He's used it often since then. We do a have few more tomahawks now. They are a simpler style though. It's a lovely spinning wheel isn't it? (I will tell her.) I do spin on that one as well. Though I haven't been able to spin any wool lately.


It has been a wonderful blessing for our family. We've had so much fun over the years and met so many wonderful people too! I still want to dress in various period garb besides 1840's.


Well, there's a start for ya! XD The lady spinning is my mom, but that's the only family member I posted. Anyone else are people we know. (The group of girls are actually Girl Scouts that participate in rendezvous.)



We do get to meet really cool people! (With really cool nicknames too!) I am not familiar with Ren Fest. You may need to explain this to me. It's part of the hobby. It requires the time period dress. I favor the authenticity over the costume. ^^ If it makes you feel better, I've only sewn a wool vous (short for rendezvous) skirt for my mom and a bag (which I'm still finishing.) We live in...Minnesooooota. (We seriously do not speak like such!) XD I'm not sure about the Victorian re-enacting, but I know Civil War re-enactments are more common out in the Wyoming area. The rendezvous we go to have a mix of American re-enacters, British/English, French/Canadian, and Scottish as well.

Ren Fest is short for Renaissance Festival I believe.

Reenacting would be cool to do, but there's nothing near where I live except the drama "Tecumseh" and "Trumpet in the Land" that I know of.

Ohhh, Scottish? Bagpipes?!

Ren Faires (yes, short for Renaissance Fair, or Festival) are usually a one or occasionally two-day thing. They happen on Saturdays and Sundays, so some people get there on Friday, camp out, get up and go early Saturday, and then do the same the next day. People get dressed up in various stuff from various time periods and go to this little village they've made especially for Ren. People sell period food, armor, swords, clothing, instruments, chain mail, lots and lots of corsets (don't be daunted, the super nice people at good corset shops will tell you exactly where you should and should not buy corsets), and other things of that nature. There are also entertainers that come and do shows, the one near me has a falconer, a fire whip cracker, jugglers, gypsy dancers, musicians, comedians, and other things like that. It's loads of fun, and the one near me is in this really isolated, woody area, so it's very pretty.

People that go are so much fun to talk to and really get into it. You're pretty much guaranteed to get bowed to and have your hand kissed multiple times (for girls, at least, guys either have lipsticky kisses forced on them- with permission of the Lady, of course-or are terrified by enthusiastic rose sellers). The whole thing basically overflows with a deplorable excess of personality. Don't go if you don't plan on getting into it, yelling a lot, or if you're overly shy and get scared if people yell at you to buy their beautiful carved ducks. But it doesn't seem like you would be.

Cal, is it bad that I can't look at your name without reading "calamari?"